This morning, Apple updated the Mac Book Pro line. Surprisingly, they decided not to offer the Quad Core of Intel i7 processors (i7-820QM, or i7-720QM). Instead, they are offering the dual core i7-620QM or the i5-540QM.
The difference between i7-720QM and i5-620QM is 4 MB vs. 3 MB of smart on-board cache and 2.66 GHz vs. 2.53 GHz in speed (Max Turbo 3.333 GHz vs. 3.066 GHz), respectively. That is about a 10% difference in speed when the processor is going full blast, which is probably less than 1% of the time.
Apple is charging close to $200, depending on the configuration, to upgrade to i7. That is a lot dough for so little improvement in speed. I believe that that money is much better spent upgrading to a 128GB solid state hard disk (SSD) instead.
Since I have been waiting for the quad core Mac Book Pro since last summer, this morning I had to reevaluate to whether I’d go for a dual core instead, without having a choice in quad core with the new Mac Book Pro line. And I guess the answer is a resounding yes.
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